HELENA — If you drove past Resurrection Cemetery in Helena on Monday, you would have seen 272 red flags blowing in the wind. Each of those flags represents a person—a Montana life lost in the Vietnam War.
The memorial was put together by Life Scout Will Dietz as his Eagle Scout project. Will said it’s something Resurrection Cemetery had wanted, and he decided to make the memorial a reality.
“A lot of the (Eagle Scout) projects are building trails and things like that,” Dietz said. “But this was just a very unique one to me, and I liked that.”
Putting together each of the 272 flags took about 6 hours total, Dietz said. He had help from the community and fellow scouts to cut 7.5-foot pieces of PVC pipe, and then affix flags to them. The PVC pipe was donated by Three Brothers Plumbing and Heating, a Helena-area business.
The end product—an eye-catching memorial for the Montanans killed in the Vietnam War.
“This is our way of remembering them and showing their service will never be forgotten to us,” Dietz said.
As for Dietz—the next step is Eagle Scout, the highest rank in scouting.
“I’ve been scouting for 11 years now, and this is the final step,” he said. “It’s very exciting.”